Divergent Titans
by The Indigo Raven2002
Summary: My first parody book. Divergent and Teen Titans. RobStar is the main pairing. If you don't like, then don't read.
1. Chapter 1

**I do not own Divergent or Teen Titans. Enjoy.**

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There is one mirror in my house. It is behind a sliding panel in the hallway upstairs. Our faction allows me to stand in front of it on the 2nd day of every 3rd month, the day my mother cuts my hair.

I sit on the stool and my mother stands behind me with the scissors, trimming. The strands fall on the floor in a dull, fiery red ring.

When she finishes, she pulls my hair away from my face and twists it into a knot. I note how calm she looks and how focused she is. She is well-practiced in the art of losing herself. I cannot say the same of myself.

I sneak a look at my reflection when she is not paying attention - not for the sake of vanity, but out of curiosity. A lot can happen to a person's appearance in three months. In my reflection, I see a tan narrow face, wide, round emerald eyes, and a short, thin nose - I still look like a little girl, though sometime in the last few months I turned sixteen. The other factions celebrate birthdays, but we do not. It would be self-indulgent.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Koriana Anders and I am 16 years old. I live near a place that used to be called Jump City a long time ago. I have heard stories about what life was like back then, but history was never my strong subject.

"There," she says when she pins the knot in place. Her eyes catch mine in the mirror. It is too late to look away, but instead of scolding me, she smiles at our reflection. I frown a little. Why does she not reprimand me for staring at myself?

"So today is the day," she says.

"Yes," I reply.

"Are you nervous?"

I stare into my own eyes for a moment. Today is the day of the aptitude test that will show me which of the five factions I belong in. And tomorrow, at the Choosing Ceremony, I will decide on a faction; I will decide the rest of my life; I will decide to stay with my family or abandon them.

"No," I say. "The tests do not have change our choices."

"Right." She smiles. "Let's go eat breakfast."

"Thank you. For cutting my hair."

She kisses my cheek and slides the panel over the mirror. I think my mother could be beautiful, in a diffent world. Her body is thin beneath the gray robe. She has high cheekbones and long eyelashes, and when she lets her fiery red hair down at night, it hangs in waves over her shoulders. But she must hide that beauty in Abnegation.

We walk together to the kitchen. On these mornings when my sister makes the breakfast, and my father's hand skims my hair as he reads the newspaper, and my mother hums as she clears the table - it is on these mornings that I feel guiltiest for wanting to leave them.

_Divergent_

The bus stinks of exhaust. Every time it hits a patch of uneven pavement, it jostles me from side to side, even though I am gripping the seat to keep myself still.

My older sister, Komiara, stands in the aisle, holding a railing above her head to keep herself steady. We do not look alike. She has my father's dark hair and hooked nose and my mother's cobalt eyes and dimpled cheeks. When she was younger, that collection of features looked strange, but now it suits her. If she was not Abnegation, I am sure the boys at school would stare at her.

She also inherited my mother's talent for selflessness. She gave her seat to a surly Candor man on the bus without a second thought.

The Candor man wears a black suit with a white tie - Candor standard uniform. Their faction values honesty and sees the truth as black and white, so that is what they wear.

The gaps between the buildings narrow and the roads are smoother as we near the heart of the city. The building that was once called the Titans' Tower - we call it the Haunt - emerges from the fog, a gray T in the skyline. The bus passes under the elevated tracks. I have never been on a train, though they never stop running and there are tracks everywhere. Only the Dauntless ride them.

Five years ago, volunteer construction workers from Abnegation repaved some of the roads. They started in the middle of the city and worked their way outward until they ran out of materials. The roads where I live are still cracked and patchy, and it is not safe to drive on them. We do not have a car anyway.

Komiara's expression is placid as the bus sways and jolts on the road. The gray robe falls from her arm as she clutches a pole for balance. I can tell by the constant shift of her eyes that she is watching the people around us - striving to see only them and to forget herself. Candor values honesty, but our faction, Abnegation, values selflessness.

The bus stops in front of the school and I get up, scooting past the Candor man. I grab Komiara's arm as I stumble over the man's shoes. My slacks are to long, and I have never been that graceful.

The Upper Levels building is the oldest of the three schools in the city: Lower Levels, Mid-Levels, and Upper Levels. Like all the other buildings around it, it is made of glass and steel. In front of it is a large metal sculpture that the Dauntless climb after school, daring each other to go higher and higher. Last year I watched one of them fall and break her leg. I was the one who ran to get the nurse.

"Aptitude tests today," I say. Komiara is not quite a year older than I am, so we are in the same year at school.

She nods as we pass through the front doors. My muscles tighten the second we walk in. The atmosphere feels hungry, like every sixteen-year-old is trying to devour as much as he can get of this last day. It is likely that we will not walk these halls again after the Choosing Ceremony - once we choose, our new factions will be responsible for finishing our education.

Our classes are cut in half today, so we will attend all of them before the aptitude tests, which take place after lunch. My heart rate is already elevated.

"You are not at all worried about what they will tell you?" I ask Komiara.

We pause at the split in the hallway where she will go one way, toward Advanced Math, and I will go the other, toward Faction History.

She raises an eyebrow at me. "Are you?"

I could tell her I have been worried for weeks about what the aptitude test will tell me - Abnegation, Candor, Erudite, Amity, or Dauntless?

Instead I smile and say, "Not really."

She smiles back. "Well...have a good day."

I walk toward Faction History, chewing on my lower lip. She never answered my question.

The hallways are cramped, though the light coming through the windows creates the illusion of space; they are one of the only places where the factions mix, at our age. Today the crowd has a new kind of energy, a last day mania.

A girl with long, blonde hair shouts "Hey!" next to my ear, waving at a distant friend. A jacket sleeve smacks me on the cheek. Then an Erudite boy in a blue sweater shoves me. I lose my balance and fall hard on the ground.

"Out of my way, Troq," he snaps, and continues down the hallway.

My cheeks warm. I get up and dust myself off. A few people stopped when I fell, but none of them offered to help me. Their eyes follow me to the edge of the hallway. This sort of thing has been happening to others in my faction for months now - the Erudite have been releasing antagonistic reports about Abnegation, and it has begun to affect the way we relate at school. The gray clothes, the plain hairstyle, and the unassuming demeanor of my faction are supposed to make it easier for me to forget myself, and easier for everyone else to forget me too. But now they make me a target.

I pause by a window in the E Wing and wait for the Dauntless to arrive. I do this every morning. At exactly 7:25, the Dauntless prove their bravery by jumping from a moving train.

My father calls the Dauntless "clorbags." They are pierced, tattooed, and black-clothed. Their primary purpose is to guard the fence that surrounds our city. From what, I do not know.

They should perplex me. I should wonder what courage - which is the virtue they most value - has to do with a metal ring through your nostril. Instead my eyes cling to them wherever they go.

The train whistle blares, the sound resonating in my chest. The light fixed to the front of the train clicks on and off as the train hurtles past the school, squealing on iron rails. And as the last few cars pass, a mass exodus of young men and women in dark clothing hurl themselves from the moving cars, some dropping and rolling, others stumbling a few steps before regaining their balance. One of the boys wraps her arm around a girl's shoulders, laughing.

Watching them is a foolish practice. I turn away from the window and press through the crowd to the Faction History classroom.

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**Is this good for a first chapter? I really think if is. R&R.**


	2. Chapter 2

**The disclaimer is in the first chapter.**

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The tests begin after lunch. We sit at the long tables in the cafeteria, and the test administrators call ten names at a time, one for each testing room. I sit next to Komiara and across from our neighbor Megan.

Megan's uncle travels throughout the city for his job, so he has a car and drives her to and from school every day. He offered to drive us, too, but as Komiara says, we prefer to leave later and would not to inconvenience him.

Of course not.

The test administrators are mostly Abnegation volunteers, although there is an Erudite in one of the testing rooms and a Dauntless in another to test those of us from Abnegation, because the rules state that we can't be tested by someone from our own faction. The rules also say that we can't prepare for the test in any way, so I don't know what to expect.

My gaze drifts from Megan to the Dauntless tables across the room. They are laughing and shouting and playing cards. At another set of tables, the Erudite chatter over books and newspapers, in constant pursuit of knowledge.

A group of Amity girls in yellow and red sit in a circle on the cafeteria floor, playing some kind of hand-slapping game involving a rhyming song. Every few minutes I hear a chorus of laughter from them as someone is eliminated and has to sit in the center of the circle. At the table next to them, Candor boys make wide gestures with their hands. They appear to be arguing about something, but it must not be serious, because some of them are still smiling.

At the Abnegation, we sit quietly and wait. Faction customs dictate even idle behavior and supersede individual preference. I doubt all the Erudite want to study all the time, or that every Candor enjoys a lively debate, but they can't defy the norms of their factions any more than I can.

Komiara's name is called in the next group. She moves confidently toward the exit. I don't need to wish her luck or assure her that she shouldn't be nervous. She knows where she belongs, and as far as I know, she always has. My earliest memory of her is from when we were four years old. She scolded me for not giving my jump rope to a little girl on the playground who didn't have anything to play with. She doesn't lecture me often anymore, but I have her look of disapproval memorized.

I have tried to explain to her that my instincts are not the same as hers - it didn't even enter my mind to give my seat to the Candor man on the bus - but she doesn't understand. "Just do what you're supposed to," she always says. It is that easy for her. It should be that easy for me.

My stomach wrenches. I close my eyes and keep them closed until ten minutes later, when Komiara sits down again.

She is plaster-pale. She pushes her palms along her legs like I do when I wipe sweat, and when she brings them back, her fingers shake. I open my mouth to ask her something, but the words don't come. I am not allowed to ask her about her results, and she is not allowed to tell me.

An Abnegation volunteer speaks the next round of names. Two from Dauntless, two from Erudite, two from Amity, two from Candor, and then: "From Abnegation: Megan Morse and Koriana Anders."

I get up because I'm supposed to, but if if were up to me, I would stay in my seat for the rest of time. I feel like there is a bubble in my chest that expands more by the second, threatening to break me apart from the inside. I follow Megan to the exit. The people I pass probably can't tell us apart. We wear the same clothes and we wear our fiery hair the same way. The only difference is that Megan might not feel like she's going to throw up, and from what I can tell, her hands aren't shaking so hard she has to clutch the hem of her shirt to steady them.

Waiting for us outside the cafeteria is a row of ten rooms. They are used only for the aptitude tests, so I have never been in one before. Unlike the ogre rooms in the school, they are separated, not by glass, but by mirrors. I watch myself, pale and terrified, walking toward one of the doors. Megan grins nervously at me as she walks into room 5, and I walk into room 5, where a Dauntless woman waits for me.

She is not as severe-looking as the young Dauntless I have seen. She has small, dark, angular eyes and wears a black blazer - like a man's suit - and jeans. It is only when she turns to close the door that I see a tattoo on the back of her neck, a black-and-white hawk with a red eye. If I didn't feel like my heart had migrated to my throat, I would ask her what it signifies. It must signify something.

Mirrors cover the inner walls of the room. I can see my reflection from all angles: the gray fabric obscuring the shape of my back, my long neck, my knobby-knuckled hands, red with a blood blush. The ceiling glows white with light. In the center of the room is a reclined chair, like a dentist's, with a machine next to it. It looks like a place where terrible things happen.

"Don't worry," the woman says, "it doesn't hurt."

Her hair is blond and straight, but in the light I see that it is streaked with gray.

"Have a seat and feet comfortable," she says. "My name is Dinah."

Clumsily I sit in the chair and recline, putting my head on the headrest. The light hurts my eyes. Dinah busies herself with the machine on my right. I try to focus on her and not on the wires in her hands.

"Why the hawk?" I blurt out as she attaches an electrode to my forehead.

"Never met a curious Abnegation before," she says, raising her eyebrows at me.

I shiver, and goose bumps appear on my arms. My curiosity is a mistake, a betrayal of Abnegation values.

Humming a little, she presses another electrode to my forehead and explains, "In some parts of the ancient world, the hawk symbolized the sun. Back when I got this, I figured if I always had the sun on me, I wouldn't be afraid of the dark."

I try to stop myself from asking another question, but I can't help it. "You're afraid of the dark?"

"I _was_ afraid of the dark," she corrects me. She presses the next electrode to her own forehead, and attaches a wire to it. She shrugs. "Now it reminds me of the fear I've overcome."

She stands behind me. I squeeze the armrests so tightly the redness pulls away from my knuckles. She tugs wires toward her, attaching them to me, to her, to the machine behind her. Then she passes me a vial of clear liquid.

"Drink this," she says.

"What is it?" My throat feels swollen. I swallow hard. "What's going to happen?"

"Can't tell you that. Just trust me."

I press air from my lungs and tip the contents of the vial into my mouth. My eyes close.

_Titans_

When they open, an instant has passed, but I am somewhere else. I stand in the school cafeteria again, but all the long tables are empty, and I see through the glass walls that it's snowing. On the table in front of me are two baskets. In one is a hunk of cheese, and in the other, a knife the length of my forearm.

Behind me, a woman's voice says, "Choose."

"Why?" I ask.

"Choose," she repeats.

I look over my shoulder, but no one is there. I turn back to the baskets. "What will I do with them?"

"Choose!" she yells.

When she screams at me, my fear disappears and stubbornness replaces it. I scowl and cross my arms.

"Have it your way," she says.

The baskets disappear. I hear a door squeak and turn to see who it is. I see not a "who" but a "what": A dog with a pointed nose stands a few yards away from me. It crouches low and creeps toward me, its lips peeling back from its white teeth. A growl gurgles from deep in its throat, and I see why the cheese would have come in handy. Or the knife. But it's too late now.

I think about running, but the dog will be faster than me. I can't wrestle it to the ground. My head pounds. I have to make a decision. If I can jump over one of the tables and use it as a shield - no, I am too short to jump over the tables, and not strong enough to tip one over.

The dog snarls, and I can almost feel the sound vibrating in my skull.

My biology textbook said that dogs can smell fear because of a chemical secreted by human glands in a state of duress, the same chemical a dog's prey secretes. Smelling fear leads them to attack. The dog inches toward me, its nails scraping the floor.

I can't run. I can't fight. Instead I breathe in the smell of the dog's foul breath and try not to think about what it just ate. There are no whites in its eyes, just a black gleam.

What else do I know about dogs? I shouldn't look it in the eye. That's a sign of aggression. I remember asking my father for a pet dog when I was young, and now, staring at the ground in front of the dog's paws, I can't remember why. It comes closer, still growling. If staring into its eyes is a sign of aggression, what's a sign of submission?

My breaths are loud but steady. I sink to my knees. The last thing I want to do is lie on the ground in front of the dog - making its teeth level with my face - but it's the best option I have. I stretch my legs out behind me and lean on my elbows. The dog creeps closer, and closer, until I feel its warm breath on my face. My arms are shaking.

It barks in my ear, and I clench my teeth to keep from screaming.

Something rough and wet touches my cheek. The dog's growling stops, and when I lift my head to look at it again, it is panting. It licked my face. I frown and sit on my heels. The dog props its paws up on my knees and licks my chin. I cringe, wiping the drool from my skin, and laugh.

"You're not such a vicious beast, huh?"

I get up slowly so I don't startle it, but it seems like a different animal than the one that faced me a few seconds ago. I stretch out a hand, carefully, so I can draw it back if I need to. The dog nudges my hand with its head. I am suddenly glad I didn't pick up the knife.

I blink, and when my eyes open, a child stands across the room wearing a white dress. She stretches out both hands and squeals, "Puppy!"

As she runs toward the dog at my side, I open my mouth to warn her, but I am too late. The dog turns. Instead of growling, it barks and snarls and snaps, and its muscles bunch up like coiled wire. About to pounce. I don't think, I just jump; I hurl my body on top of the dog, wrapping my arms around its thick neck.

My head hits the ground. The dog is gone, and so is the little girl. Instead I am alone - in the testing room, now empty. I turn in a slow circle and can't see myself in any of the mirrors. I push the door open and walk into the hallway, but it isn't a hallway; it's a bus, and all the seats are taken.

I stand in the aisle and hold on to a pole. Sitting near me is a man with a newspaper. I can't see his face over the top of the paper, but I can see his hands. They are scarred, like he was burned, and they clench around the paper like he wants to crumple it.

"Do you know this guy?" he asks. He taps the picture on the front page of the newspaper. The headline reads: "Brutal Murderer Finally Apprehended!" I stare at the word "murderer." It has been a long time since I last read that word, but even its shape fills me with dread.

In the picture beneath the headline is a young man with a plain face and a beard. I feel like I do know him, though I don't remember how. And at the same time, I feel like it would be a bad idea to tell the man that.

"Well?" I hear anger in his voice. "Do you?"

A bad idea - no, a very bad idea. My heart pounds and I clutch the pole to keep my hands from shaking, from giving me away. If I tell him I know the man from the article, something awful will happen to me. But I can convince him that I don't. I can clear my throat and shrug my shoulders - but that would be a lie.

I clear my throat.

"Do you?" he repeats.

I shrug my shoulders.

"Well?"

A shudder goes through me. My fear is irrational; this is just a test, it isn't real. "Nope," I say, my voice casual. "No idea who he is."

He stands, and finally I see his face. He wears dark sunglasses and his mouth is bent into a snarl. His cheek is rippled with scars, like his hands. He leans close to my face. His breath smells like cigarettes. _Not real_, I remind myself. _Not real._

"You're lying," he says. "You're _lying_!"

"I am not."

"I can see it in your eyes."

I pull myself up straighter. "You can't."

"If you know him," he says in a low voice, "you could save me. You could _save_ me!"

I narrow my eyes. "Well," I say. I set my jaw. "I don't."

* * *

**Ooh, cliffie! I'm so evil! Jk. Also, Dinah is Black Canary. R&R. **

**Stay whelmed! TIR02**


	3. Chapter 3

I wake to sweaty palms and a pang of guilt in my chest. I am lying in the chair in the mirrored room. When I tilt my head back, I see Dinah behind me. She pinches her lips together and removes electrodes from our heads. I wait for her to say something about the test—that it is over, or that I did well, although how could I do poorly on a test like this?—but she says nothing, just pulls the wires from my forehead.

I sit forward and wipe my palms off on my slacks. I had to have done something wrong, even if it only happened in my mind. Is that strange look on Dinah's face because she doesn't know how to tell me what a terrible person I am? I wish she would just come out with it.

"That," she says, "was perplexing. Excuse me, I'll be right back."

Perplexing?

I bring my knees to my chest and bury my face in them. I wish I felt like crying, because the tears might bring me a sense of release, but I do not. How can you fail a test you are not allowed to prepare for?

As the moments pass, I get more nervous. I have to wipe off my hands every few seconds as the sweat collects—or maybe I just do it because it helps me feel calmer. What if they tell me that I am not cut out for any faction? I would have to live on the streets, with the factionless. I cannot do that. To live factionless is not just to live in poverty and discomfort; it is to live divorced from society, separated from the most important thing in life: community.

My mother told me once that we cannot survive alone, but even if we could, we would not want to. Without a faction, we have no purpose and no reason to live.

I shake my head. I cannot think like this. I have to stay calm.

Finally the door opens, and Dinah walks back in. I grip the arms of the chair.

"Sorry to worry you," Dinah says. She stands by my feet with her hands in her pockets. She looks tense and pale.

"Koriana, your results were inconclusive," she says. "Typically, each stage of the simulation eliminates one or more of the factions, but in your case, only two have been ruled out."

I stare at her. "Two?" I ask. My throat is so tight it is hard to talk.

"If you had shown an automatic distaste for the knife and selected the cheese, the simulation would have led you to a different scenario that confirmed your aptitude for Amity. That didn't happen, which is why Amity is out." Dinah scratches the back of her neck. "Normally, the simulation progresses in a linear fashion, isolating one faction by ruling out the rest. The choices you made you didn't even allow Candor, the next possibility, to be ruled out, so I had to alter the simulation to put you on the bus. And there your insistence upon dishonesty ruled out Candor." She half smiles. "Don't worry about that. Only the Candor tell the truth in that one."

One of the knots in my chest loosens. Maybe I am not an awful person.

"I suppose that's not entirely true. People who tell the truth are the Candor...and the Abnegation," she says. "Which gives us a problem."

My mouth falls open.

"On the one hand, you threw yourself on the dog rather than let it attack the little girl, which is an Abnegation-oriented response...but on the other, when the man told you that the truth would save him, you still refused to tell it. Not an Abnegation-oriented response." She sighs. "Not running from the dog suggests Dauntless, but so does taking the knife, which you didn't do."

She clears her throat and continues. "Your intelligent response to the dog indicates strong alignment with the Erudite. I have no idea what to make of your indecision in stage one, but—"

"Wait," I interrupt her. "So you have no idea what my aptitude is?"

"Yes and no. My conclusion," she explains, "is that you display equal aptitude for Abnegation, Dauntless, and Erudite. People who get this kind of result are..." She looks over her shoulder like she expects someone to appear behind her. "...are called..._Divergent_." She says the last word so quietly that I almost do not hear it, and her tense, worried look returns. She walks around the side of the chair and leans in close to me.

"Koriana," she says, "under no circumstances should you share that information with anyone. This is very important."

"We are not supposed to share our results." I nod. "I know that."

"No." Dinah kneels next to the chair now and places her arms on the armrest. Our faces are inches apart. "This is different. I don't mean you shouldn't share them now; I mean you should never share them with anyone, _ever_, no matter what happens. Divergence is extremely dangerous. You understand?"

I do not understand—how could inconclusive test results be dangerous—but I still nod. I do not want to share my test results with anyone anyway.

"Okay." I peel my hands from the arms of the chair and stand. I feel unsteady.

"I suggest," Dinah says, "that you go home. You have a lot of thinking to do, and waiting with the others may not benefit you."

"I have to tell my sister where I am going."

"I'll let her know."

I touch my forehead and stare at the floor as I walk out of the room. I cannot bear to look her in the eye. I cannot bear to think about the Choosing Ceremony tomorrow.

It is my choice now, no matter what the test says.

Abnegation. Dauntless. Erudite.

Divergent.

_Divergent_

I decide not to take the bus. If I get home early, my father will notice when he checks the house log at the end of the day, and I will have to explain what happened. Instead I walk. I will have to intercept Komiara before she mentions anything to our parents, but Komiara can keep a secret.

I walk in the middle of the road. The buses tend to hug the curb, so it is safer here. Sometimes, on the streets near my house, I can see places where the yellow lines used to be. We have no use for them now that there are so few cars. We do not need stop lights, either, but in some places they dangle precariously over the road like they might crash down any minute.

Renovation moves slowly through the city, which is a patchwork of new, clean buildings and old, crumbling ones. Most of the new buildings are next to the marsh, which used to be a lake a long time ago. The Abnegation volunteer agency my mother works for is responsible for most of those renovations.

When I look at the Abnegation lifestyle as an outsider, I think it is beautiful. When I watch my family move in harmony; when we go to dinner parties and everyone cleans together afterward without having to be asked; when I see Komiara help strangers carry their groceries, I fall in love with this life all over again. It is only when I try to live it myself that I have trouble. It never feels genuine.

But choosing a different faction means I forsake my family. Permanently.

Just past the Abnegation sector of the city is the stretch of building skeletons and broken sidewalks that I now walk through. There are places where the road has completely collapsed, revealing sewer systems and empty subways that I have to be careful to avoid, and places that stink so powerfully of sewage and trash that I have to plug my nose.

This is where the factionless live. Because they failed to complete invitation into whatever faction they chose, they live in poverty, doing the work no one else wants to do. They are janitors and construction workers and garbage collectors; they make fabric and operate trains and drive buses. In return for their work they get food and clothing, but, as my mother says, not enough of either.

I see a factionless man standing on the corner up ahead. He wears ragged brown clothing and skin sags from his jaw. He stares at me, and I stare back at him, unable to look away.

"Excuse me," he says. His voice is raspy. "Do you have something I can eat?"

I feel a lump in my throat. A stern voice in my head says, _Duck your head and keep walking_.

No. I shake my head. I should not be afraid of this man. He needs help and I am supposed to help him.

"Um...yes," I say. I reach into my bag. My father tells me to keep food in my bag at all times for exactly this reason. I offer the man a small bag of dried apple slices.

He reaches for them, but instead of taking the bag, his hand closes around my wrist. He smiles at me. He has a gap between his front teeth.

"My, don't you have pretty eyes," he says. "It's a shame the rest of you is so plain."

My heart pounds. I tug my hand back, but his grip tightens. I smell something acrid and unpleasant on his breath.

"You look a little young to be walking around by yourself, dear," he says.

I stop tugging, and stand up straighter. I know I look young; I do not need to be reminded. "I am older than I look," I retort. "I am sixteen."

His lips spread wide, revealing a gray molar with a dark pit in the side. I cannot tell if he is smiling or grimacing. "Then isn't today a special day for you? The day before you _choose_?"

"Let go of me," I say. I hear ringing in my ears. My voice sounds clear and stern—not what I expected to hear. I feel like it does not belong to me.

I am ready. I know what to do. I picture myself bringing my elbow back and hitting him. I see the bag of apples flying away from me. I hear my running footsteps. I am prepared to act.

But then he releases my wrist, takes the apples, and says, "Choose wisely, little girl."

**I am on a roll. And if any of you readers were wondering about names, in Blackfire's name, the first 'a' is a long vowel sound.**

**Also, whoever guesses why I put the name Dinah in this book gets a virtual cookie.**

**Stay whelmed!**


	4. Chapter 4

I reach my street five minutes before I usually do, according to my watch—which is the only adornment Abnegation allows, and only because it is practical. It has a gray band and a glass face. If I tilt it right, I can almost see my reflection over the hands.

The houses on my street are all the same size and shape. They are made of gray cement, with few windows, in economical, no–nonsense rectangles. Their lawns are crabgrass and their mailboxes are dull metal. To some the sight might be gloomy, but to me their simplicity is comforting.

The reason for the simplicity is not disdain for uniqueness, as the other factions have sometimes interpreted it. Everything—our houses, our clothes, our hairstyle—is meant to help us forget ourselves and to protect us from vanity, greed, and envy, which are just forms of selfishness. If we have little, and want for little, and we are all equal, we envy no one.

I try to love it.

I sit on the front step and wait for Komiara to arrive. It does not take long. After a minute I see gray–robed forms walking down the street. I hear laughter. At school we try not to draw attention to ourselves, but once we are home, the games and jokes start. My natural tendency toward sarcasm is still not appreciated. Sarcasm is always at the expense of someone else. Maybe it is better that Abnegation wants me to suppress it. Maybe I do not have to leave my family. Maybe if I fight to make Abnegation work, my act will turn into a reality.

"Koriana!" Komiara says. "What happened? Are you all right?"

"I am fine." She is with Megan and her brother, Kaldur, and Megan is giving me a strange look, like I am a different person than the one she knew this morning. I shrug. "When the test was over, I got sick. Must have been that liquid they gave us. I feel better now, though."

I try to smile convincingly. I seem to have persuaded Megan and Kaldur, who no longer look concerned for my mental stability, but Komiara narrows her eyes at me, the way she does when she suspects someone of duplicity.

"Did you two take the bus today?" I ask. I do not care how Megan and Kaldur got home from school, but I need to change the subject.

"Our uncle had to work late," Kaldur says, "and he told us we should spend some time thinking before the ceremony tomorrow."

My heart pounds at the mention of the ceremony.

"You are welcome to come over later, if you would like," Komiara says politely.

"Thank you." Kaldur smiles at Komiara.

Megan raises an eyebrow at me. She and I have been exchanging looks for the past year as Kaldur and Komiara flirt in the tentative way known only to the Abnegation. Komiara's eyes follow Kaldur down the walk. I have to grab her arm to startle her from her daze. I lead her into the house and close the door behind us.

She turns to me. Her dark, straight eyebrows draw together so that a crease appears between them. When she frowns, she looks more like my mother than my father. In an instant I can see her living the same kind of life my father did: staying in Abnegation, learning a trade, marrying Kaldur, and having a family. It would be wonderful.

I may not see it.

"Are you going to tell me the truth now?" she asks softly.

"The truth is," I say, "I am not supposed to discuss it. And you are not supposed to ask."

"All those rules you bend, and you cannot bend this one? Not even for something this important?" Her eyebrows tug together, and she bites the corner of her lip. Though her words are accusatory, it sounds like she is probing me for information—like she actually wants my answer.

I narrow my eyes. "Will you? What happened in _your_ test, Komiara?"

Our eyes meet. I hear a train horn, so faint it could easily be wind whistling through an alleyway. But I know it when I hear it. It sounds like the Dauntless, calling me to them.

"Just...do not tell our parents what happened, okay?" I say.

Her eyes stay on mine for a few seconds, and then she nods.

I want to go upstairs and lie down. The test, the walk, and my encounter with the factionless man exhausted me. But my sister made breakfast this morning, and my mother prepared our lunches, and my father made dinner last night, so it is my turn to cook. I breathe deeply and walk into the kitchen to start cooking.

A minute later, Komiara joins me. I grit my teeth. She helps with everything. What irritates me most about her is her natural goodness, her inborn selflessness.

Komiara and I work together without speaking. I cook glorp on the stove. She defrosts bananas and pickles. Most of what we eat is frozen or canned, because farms these days are far away. My mother told me once that, a long time ago, there were people who would not buy genetically engineered produce because they viewed it as unnatural. Now we have no other option.

By the time my parents get home, dinner is ready and the table is set. My father drops his bag at the door and kisses my head. Other people see him as an opinionated man—too opinionated, maybe—but he is also loving. I try to see only the good in him; I try.

"How did the test go?" he asks me. I pour the glorp into a serving bowl.

"Fine," I say. Dinah was correct when she said I could not be Candor. I lie too easily.

"I heard there was some kind of upset with one of the tests," my mother says. Like my father, she works for the government, but she manages city improvement projects. She recruited volunteers to administer the aptitude tests. Most of the time, though, she organizes workers to help the factionless with food and shelter and job opportunities.

"Really?" says my father. A problem with the aptitude tests is rare.

"I do not know much about it, but my friend Arella told me that something went wrong with one of the tests, so the results had to be reported verbally." My mother places a napkin next to each plate on the table. "Apparently the student got sick and was sent home early." My mother shrugs. "I hope they are all right. Did you two hear about that?"

"No," Komiara says. She smiles at my mother.

My sister could not be Candor either.

We sit at the table. We always pass food to the right, and no one eats until everyone is served. My father extends his hands to my mother and my sister, and they extend their hands to him and me, and my father gives thanks to X'hal for food and work and friends and family. X'hal is the Abnegation god. Not every Abnegation family is religious, but my father says we should try not to see those differences because they will only divide us. I am not sure what to make of that.

"So," my mother says to my father. "Tell me."

She takes my father's hand and moves her thumb in a small circle over his knuckles. I stare at their joined hands. My parents love each other, but they rarely show affection like this in front of us. They taught us that physical contact is powerful, so I have been wary of it since I was young.

"Tell me what is bothering you," she adds.

I stare at my plate. My mother's acute senses sometimes surprise me, but now they chide me. Why was I so focused on myself that I did not notice his deep frown and his sagging posture?

"I had a difficult day at work," he says. "Well, really, it was Bruce who had the difficult day. I should not lay claim to it."

Bruce Wayne is my father's coworker; they are both political leaders. The city is ruled by a council of fifty people, composed entirely of representatives from Abnegation, because our faction is regarded as incorruptible, due to our commitment to selflessness. Our leaders are selected by their peers for their impeccable character, moral fortitude, and leadership skills. Representatives from each of the other factions can speak in the meetings on behalf of a particular issue, but ultimately, the decision is of the council. And while the council technically makes decisions together, Bruce is particularly influential.

It has been this way since the beginning of the great peace, when the factions were formed. I think the system persists because we are afraid of what might happen if it did not: war.

"Is this about that report Madison Ruse**(1)** released?" my mother says. Madison Ruse is the sole representative of Erudite, selected based on her IQ score. My father complains about her often.

I look up from my plate. "A report?"

Komiara gives me a warning look. We are not supposed to speak at the dinner table unless our parents ask us a direct question, and they usually do not. Our listening ears are a gift to them, my father says. They give us their listening ears softer dinners, in the family room.

"Yes," my father says. His eyes narrow. "Those arrogant, self–righteous–" He stops and clears his throat. "Sorry. But she released a report attacking Bruce's character."

I raise my eyebrows.

"What did it say?" I ask.

"Koriana," Komiara says quietly.

I duck my head, turning my fork over and over and over until the warmth leaves my cheeks. I do not like to be chastised. Especially by my sister.

"If said," my father says, "that Bruce's violence and cruelty toward his adopted son is the reason his son chose Dauntless instead of Abnegation."

Few people who are born into Abnegation choose to depart from it. When they do, we remember. Two years ago, Bruce's adopted son, Richard Grayson, left us for the Dauntless, and Bruce was devastated. Richard was the only child Bruce adopted—and his only family, since his parents died from bullet wounds when he was young.

I have never met Richard. He rarely attended community events and never joined his father at our house for dinner. My father would remark that it was strange, but now it does not matter.

"Cruel? Bruce?" My mother shakes her head. "That poor man. As if he needs to be reminded of his loss."

"Of his son's betrayal, you mean?" my father says coldly. "I should not be surprised at this point. The Erudite have been attacking us with these reports for months. And this is not the end. There will be more, I am sure of it."

I should not speak again, but I cannot help myself. I blurt out, "Why are they doing this?"

"How about you take this opportunity to listen to your father, Koriana?" my mother says gently. It is phrased like a suggestion, not a command. I look across the table at Komiara, who has that look of disapproval in her cobalt eyes.

I stare at my glorp. I am not sure I can continue living this life of obligation any longer. I am not good enough.

"You know why, my little bumgorf," my father says. "Because we have something they want. Valuing knowledge above all else results in a lust for power, and that leads men into dark and empty places. We should be thankful that we know better."

I mod my head. I know I will not choose Erudite, even though my test results suggested that I could. I am my father daughter.

My parents clean up after dinner. They do not even let Komiara help them, because we are supposed to keep to ourselves this night instead of gathering in the family room, so we can think about our results.

My family might be able to me choose, if I were allowed to talk about my results. But I cannot. Dinah's warning whispers in my memory every time my resolve to keep it a secret falters.

Komiara and I climb the stairs and, at the top, when we divide to go to our separate bedrooms, she stops me with a hand on my shoulder. I turn around to face her.

"Koriana," she says, her cobalt eyes burning into my emerald ones. "We should think of our family." There is an edge to her voice. "But. But we must also think of ourselves."

I stare at Komiara in shock for a moment. I have never seen her think of herself, never heard her insist on anything but selflessness.

I am so startled by her comment that I just say what I am expected to say: "The tests do not have to change our choices."

She smiles a little. "Don't they, though?" She never uses contractions.

Komiara squeezes my shoulder and walks into her bedroom. I peer into her room and see an unmade bed and a stack of books on her desk. She closes the door so I can only see indigo wood. I wish I could tell Komiara that we are going through the same thing. I wish I could speak to her like I want to instead of like I am supposed to. But the idea of admitting that I need help is too much to bear, so I turn away.

I walk into my room, and when I close my emerald wood door behind me, I realize that the decision might be simple. It will require a great act of selflessness to choose Abnegation, or a great act of courage to choose Dauntless, and maybe just choosing one over the other will prove that I belong. Tomorrow, those two qualities will struggle within me, and only one can win.

**Sorry for the delay. I was busy with school shopping.**

**(1): Madison Ruse is Madame Rouge.**

**Stay whelmed!**


	5. Chapter 5

The bus we take to get to the Choosing Ceremony is full of people in gray shirts and gray slacks. A pale ring of sunlight burns into the clouds like the end of a lit cigarette. I will never smoke one myself–they are closely tied to vanity–but a crowd of Candor smokes them in front of the building when we get off the bus.

I have to tilt my head back to see the top of the Haunt, and even then, part of it disappears into the clouds. It is the tallest building in the city. I can see the lights on the two prongs on its roof from my bedroom window.

I follow my parents off the bus. Komiara seems calm, but so would I, if I knew what I was going to do. Instead I get the distinct impression that my heart will burst out of my chest any minute now, and I grab her arm to steady myself as I walk up the front steps.

The elevator is crowded, so my father volunteers to give a cluster of Amity our place. We climb the stairs instead, following him unquestioningly. We set an example for our fellow faction members, and soon the three of us are engulfed in the mass of gray fabric ascending cement stairs in the half light. I settle into their pace. The uniform pounding of feet in my ears and the homogeneity of the people around me makes me believe that I could choose this. I could be subsumed into Abnegation's hive mind, projecting always outward.

But then my legs get sore, and I struggle to breathe, and I am again distracted by myself. We have to climb twenty flights of stairs to get to the Choosing Ceremony.

My father holds the door open on the twentieth floor and stands like a sentry as every Abnegation walks past him. I would wait for him, but the crowd presses me forward, out of the stairwell and into the room where I will decide the rest of my life.

The room is arranged in concentric circles. On the edges stand the sixteen-year-olds of every faction. We are not called members yet; our decisions today will make us initiates, and we will become members if we complete initiation.

We arrange ourselves in reverse alphabetical order, according to the last names we may leave behind today. I stand between Komiara and Bart Allen, an Amity boy with rosy cheeks and a red shirt, red slacks, and red shoes.

Rows of chairs for our families make up the next circle. They are arranged in five sections, according to faction. Not everyone in each faction comes to the crowd looks huge.

The responsibility to conduct the ceremony rotates from faction to faction each year, and this year is Abnegation's. Bruce will give the opening address and read the names in alphabetical order. Komiara will choose before me.

In the last circle are five metal bowls so large they could hold my entire body, if I curled up. Each one contains a substance that represents each faction: gray stones for Abnegation, water for Erudite, earth for Amity, lit coals for Dauntless, and glass for Candor.

When Bruce calls my name, I will walk to the center of the three circles. I will not speak. He will offer me a knife. I will cut into my hand and sprinkle my blood into the bowl of the faction I choose.

My blood on the stones. My blood sizzling on the coals.

Before my parents sit down, they stand in front of Komiara and me. My father kisses our foreheads, grinning.

"See you soon," he says. Without a trace of doubt.

My mother hugs me, and what little resolve I have left almost breaks. I clench my jaw and stare up at the ceiling, where globe lanterns hang and fill the room with blue light. She holds me for what feels like a long time, even after I let my hands fall. Before she pulls away, she turns her head and whispers in my ear, "I love you. No matter what."

I frown at her back as she walks away. She knows what I might do. She must know, or she would not feel the need to say that.

Komiara grabs my hand, squeezing my palm so tightly it hurts, but I do not let go. The last time we held hands was at the funeral of my uncle Galfore, as my father cried. We need the strength of each other now, just as we did then.

The room slowly comes to order. I should be observing the Dauntless; I should be taking in as much information as I can, but I can only stare at the lanterns across the room. I try to lose myself on the blue glow.

Bruce stands at the podium between the Erudite and the Dauntless and clears his throat into the microphone. "Welcome," he says. "Welcome to the Choosing Ceremony. Welcome to the day we honor the democratic philosophy of our ancestors, which tells us that every man has the right to choose his own way in this world."

Or, it occurs to me, one of five predetermined ways. I squeeze Komiara's fingers as hard as she is squeezing mine.

"Our dependents are now sixteen. They stand on the precipice of adulthood, and it is now up to them to decide what kind of people they will be." Bruce's voice is solemn and gives equal weight to each word. "Decades ago our ancestors realized that it is not political ideology, religious belief, race, or nationalism that is to blame for a warring world. Rather, they determined that it was the fault of human personality–of humankind's inclination toward evil, in whatever form that is. They divided into factions that sought to eradicate those qualities they believed responsible for the world's disarray."

My eyes shift to the bowls in the center of the room. What do I believe? I do not know; I do not know; I do not know.

"Those who blamed aggression formed Amity."

The Amity exchange smiles. They are dressed comfortably, in red or yellow. Every time I see them, they seem kind, loving, free. But joining them has never been an option for me.

"Those who blamed ignorance became the Erudite."

Ruling out Erudite was the only part of my choice that was easy.

"Those who blamed duplicity created Candor."

I have never liked Candor.

"Those who blamed selfishness made Abnegation."

I blame selfishness; I do.

"And those who blamed cowardice were the Dauntless."

But I am not selfless enough. Sixteen years of trying and I am not enough.

My legs go numb, like all the life has gone out of them, and I wonder how I will walk when my name is called.

"Working together, these five factions have lived in peace for many years, each contributing to a different sector of society. Abnegation has fulfilled our need for selfless leaders in government; Candor has provided us with trustworthy and sound leaders in law; Erudite has supplied us with intelligent teachers and researchers; Amity has given us understanding counselors and caretakers; and Dauntless provides us with protection from threats both within and without. But the reach of each faction is not limited to these areas. We give one another far more than can be adequately summarized. In our factions, we find meaning, we find purpose, we find life."

I think of the motto I read in my Faction History textbook: _Faction before blood. _More than family, our factions are where we belong. Can that possibly be right?

Bruce adds, "Apart from them, we would not survive."

The silence that follows his words is heavier than other silences. It is heavy with our worst fear, greater even than the fear of death: to be factionless.

Bruce continues, "Therefore this day marks a happy occasion–the day on which we receive our new initiates, who will work with us toward a better society and a better world."

A round of applause. It sounds muffled. I try to stand completely still, because if my knees are locked and my body is stiff, I do not shake. Bruce reads the first names, but I cannot tell one syllable from the other. How will I know when he calls my name?

One by one, each sixteen-year-old steps out of line and walks to the middle of the room. The first girl to choose decides on Amity, the same faction from which she came. I watch her blood droplets fall on soil, and she stands behind their seats alone.

The room is constantly moving, a new name and a new person choosing, a new knife and a new choice. I recognize most of them, but I doubt they know me.

"Whitney A'Daire," Bruce says.**(1)**

Whitney A'Daire of the Dauntless is the first person to stumble on her way to the bowls. She throws her arms out and regains her balance before hitting the floor. Her face turns red and she walks fast to the middle of the room. When she stands in the center, she looks from the Dauntless bowl to the Candor bowl–the orange flames that rise higher each moment, and the glass reflecting blue light.

Bruce offers Whitney the knife. She breathes deeply–I watch her chest rise–and, as she exhales, accepts the knife. Then she drags it across her palm with a jerk and holds her arm out to the side. Her blood falls onto glass, and she is the first of us to switch factions. The first faction transfer. A mutter rises from the Dauntless section, and I stare at the floor.

They will see Whitney as a traitor from now on. Her Dauntless family will have the option of visiting her in her new faction, a week and a half from now on Visiting Day, but they will not, because she left them. Her absence will haunt their hallways, and she will be a space they cannot fill. And then time will pass, and the hole will be gone, like when an organ is removed and the fluids of the body flow into the space it leaves. Humans cannot tolerate emptiness for long.

"Komiara Anders," says Bruce.

Komiara squeezes my hand one last time, and as she walks away, casts a long look at me over her shoulder. I watch her feet move to the center of the room, and her hands, steady as they accept the knife from Bruce, are deft as one presses the knife into the other. Then she stands with blood pooling in her palm, and her lip snags on her teeth.

Komiara breathes out. And then in. And then she holds her hand over the Erudite bowl, and her blood drips into the water, turning it a deeper shade of red.

I hear mutters that lift into outraged cries. I can barely think straight. My sister, my selfless sister, a faction transfer? My sister, born for Abnegation, _Erudite_?

When I close my eyes, I see the stack of books on Komiara's desk, and her shaking hands sliding along her legs after the aptitude test. Why did I not realize that when she told me to think of myself yesterday, she was also giving that advice to herself?

I scan the crowd of the Erudite–they wear smug smiles and nudge each other. The Abnegation, normally so placid, speak to one another in tense whispers and glare across the room at the faction that has become our enemy.

"Excuse me," says Bruce, but the crowd does not hear him. He shouts, "Quiet, please!"

The room goes silent. Except for a ringing sound.

I hear my name and a shudder propels me forward. Halfway to the bowls, I am sure that I will choose Abnegation. I can see it now. I watch myself grow into a woman in Abnegation robes, marrying Megan's brother, Kaldur, volunteering on the weekends, the peace of routine, the quiet nights spent in front of the fireplace, the certainty that I will be safe, and if not good enough, better than I am now.

The ringing, I realize, is in my ears.

I look at Komiara, who now stands behind the Erudite. She stares back at me and nods a little, like she knows what I am thinking, and agrees. My footsteps falter. If Komiara was not fit for Abnegation, how can I be? But what choice do I have, now that she left us and I am the only one who remains? She left me no other option.

I set my jaw. I will have to be the child that stays; I have to do this for my parents. I have to.

Bruce offers me my knife. I look into his eyes–they are dark blue, a strange color–and take it. He nods, and I turn toward the bowls. Dauntless fire and Abnegation stones are both on my left, one in front of my shoulder and one behind. I hold the knife in my right hand and touch the blade to my palm. Gritting my teeth, I drag the blade down. It stings, but I barely notice. I hold both hands to my chest, and my next breath shudders on the way out.

I open my eyes and thrust my arm out. My blood drips onto the carpet between the two bowls. Then, with a gasp I cannot contain, I shift my hand forward, and my blood sizzles on the coals.

I am selfish. I am brave.

**Sorry for the wait.**

**(1): Whitney A'Daire is Whisper A'Daire from Young Justice.**

**Stay whelmed!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I will be updating two chapters at a time.**

* * *

I train my eyes on the floor and stand behind the Dauntless-born initiates who chose to return to their own faction. They are all taller than I am, so even when I lift my head, I see only black-clothed shoulders. When the last girl makes her choice–Amity–it is time to leave. The Dauntless exit first. I walk past the gray-clothed men and women who were my faction, staring determinedly at the back of someone's head.

But I have to see my parents one more time. I look over my shoulder at the last second before I pass them, and immediately wish I had not. The forest green eyes of my father burn into my emerald ones with a look of accusation. At first, when I feel the heat behind my eyes, I think he has found a way to set me on fire, to punish me for what I have done, but no–I am about to cry.

Beside him, my mother is smiling.

The people behind me press me forward, away from my family, who will be the last ones to leave. They may even stay to stack the chairs and clean the bowls. I twist my head around to find Komiara in the crowd of Erudite behind me. She stands among the other initiates, shaking hands with a faction transfer, a boy who was Candor. The easy smile she wears is an act of betrayal. My stomach wrenches and I turn away. If it is so easy for her, maybe it should be easy for me, too.

I glance at the boy to my left, who was Erudite and now looks as pale and nervous as I should feel. I spent all my time worrying about which faction I would choose and never considered what would happen if I chose Dauntless. What waits for me at Dauntless headquarters?

The crowd of Dauntless leading us go to the stairs instead of the elevators. I thought only the Abnegation used the stairs.

Then everyone starts running. I hear whoops and shouts and laughter all around me, and dozens of thundering feet moving at different rhythms. It is not a selfless act for the Dauntless to take the stairs; it is a wild act.

"What the heck is going on?" the boy next to me shouts.

I just shake my head and keep running. I am breathless when we reach the first floor, and the Dauntless burst through the exit. Outside, the air is crisp and cold and the sky is orange from the setting sun. It reflects off the black glass of the Haunt.

The Dauntless sprawl across the street, blocking the path of a bus, and I sprint to catch up to the back of the crowd. My confusion dissipates as I run. I have not run anywhere in a long time. Abnegation discourages anything done strictly for my own enjoyment, and that is what this is: my lungs burning, my muscles aching, the fierce pleasure of a flat-out sprint. I follow the Dauntless down the street and around the corner and hear a familiar sound: the train horn.

"Oh no," mumbles the Erudite boy. "Are we supposed to hop on that thing?"

"Yes," I say, breathless.

It is good that I spent so much time watching the Dauntless arrive at school. The crowd spreads out in a long line. The train glides toward us on steel rails, its light flashing, its horn blaring. The door of each car is open, waiting for the Dauntless to pile in, and they do, group by group, until only the new initiates are left. The Dauntless-born initiates are used to doing this by now, so in a second it is just faction transfers left.

I step forward with a few others and start jogging. We run with the car for a few steps and then throw ourselves sideways. I am not as tall or as strong as some of them, so I cannot pull myself into the car. I cling to a handle next to the doorway, my shoulder slamming into the car. My arms shake, and finally a Candor girl grabs me and pulls me in. Gasping, I thank her.

I hear a shout and look over my shoulder. A short Erudite boy with red hair**(1)** pumps his arms as he tries to catch up to the train. An Erudite girl by the door reaches out to grab the boy's hand, straining, but he is too far behind. He falls to his knees next to the tracks as we sail away, and puts his head in his hands.

I feel uneasy. He just failed Dauntless initiation. He is factionless now. It could happen at any moment. That could have been me.

"You all right?" the Candor girl who helped me asks briskly. She is short, with pale skin and short violet hair. Pretty.

I nod.

"I'm Rachel," she says, offering me her hand.

I have not shaken a hand in a long time either. The Abnegation greeted one another by bowing heads, a sign of respect. I take her hand, uncertainly, and shake it twice, hoping I did not squeeze too hard or not hard enough.

"Koriana," I say.

"Do you know where we're going?" She has to shout over the wind, which blows harder through the open doors by the second. The train is picking up speed. I sit down. It will be easier to keep my balance if I am low to the ground. She raises an eyebrow at me.

"A fast train means wind," I say. "Wind means falling out. Get down."

Rachel sits next to me, inching back to lean against the wall.

"I guess we are going to Dauntless headquarters," I say, "but I do not know where that is."

"Does anyone?" She shakes her head, grinning. "It's like they just popped out of a hole in the ground or something."

Then the wind rushes through the car, and the other faction transfers, hit with bursts of air, fall on top of one another. I watch Rachel laugh without hearing her and manage a smile.

Over my left shoulder, orange light from the setting sun reflects off the glass buildings, and I can faintly see the rows of gray houses that used to be my home.

Tonight, Komiara was supposed to make dinner. Who will take her place–my mother or my father? And when they clear out her room, what will they discover? I imagine books jammed between the dresser and the wall, books under her mattress. The Erudite thirst for knowledge filling all the hidden places in her room. Did she always know that she would choose Erudite? And if she did, how did I not notice?

What a good actor she was. The thought makes me sick to my stomach, because even though I left them too, at least I was no good at pretending. At least they all knew that I was not selfless.

I close my eyes and picture my mother and father sitting at the dinner table in silence. Is it a lingering hint of selflessness that makes my throat tighten at the thought of them, or is it selfishness, because I know I will never be their daughter again?

_Titans_

"They're jumping off!"

I lift my head. My neck aches. I have been curled up with my back against the wall for at least a half hour, listening to the roaring wind and watching the city smear past us. I sit forward. The train has slowed down in the past few minutes, and I see that the boy who shouted is right: The Dauntless in the cars ahead of us are jumping out as the train passes a rooftop. The tracks are seven stories up.

The idea of leaping out of a moving train onto a rooftop, knowing there is a gap between the edge of the roof and the edge of the track, makes me want to throw up. I push myself up and stumble to the opposite side of the car, where the other faction transfers stand in a line.

"We have to jump off too, then," a Candor girl says. She has long blond hair and a snobbish look.

"Great," a Candor boy replies, "because that makes perfect sense, Terra. Leap off a train onto a roof."

"This is kind of what we signed up for, Xavier," the girl points out.

"Well, I'm not doing it," says an Amity boy behind me. He has tan skin and wears a brown shirt–he is the _only_ transfer from Amity. His cheeks shine with tears.

"You've got to," Rachel says, "or you fail. Come on, it'll be all right."

"No, it won't! I'd rather be factionless than dead!" The Amity boy shakes his head. He sounds panicky. He keeps shaking his head and staring at the rooftop, which is getting closer by the second.

I do not agree with him. I would rather be dead than empty, like the factionless.

"You cannot force him," I say, glancing at Rachel. Her violet eyes are wide, and she presses her lips together so hard they change color. She offers me her hand.

"Here," she says. I raise an eyebrow at her hand, about to say that I do not need help, but she adds, "I just...can't do it unless someone drags me."

I take her hand and we stand at the edge of the car. As it passes the roof, I count, "One...two..._three_!"

On three we launch off the train car. A weightless moment, and then my feet slam into solid ground and pain prickles through my shins. The jarring landing sends me sprawling on the rooftop, gravel under my cheek. I release Rachel's hand. She is laughing.

"That was fun," she says.

Rachel will fit in with Dauntless thrill seekers. I brush grains of rock from my cheek. All the initiates except the Amity boy made it onto the roof, with varying levels of success. The Candor girl with blonde hair, Terra, holds her ankle, wincing, and Xavier, the Candor boy with strawberry blonde hair, grins proudly–he must have landed on his feet.

Then I hear a wail. I turn my head, searching for the source of the sound. A Dauntless girl stands at the edge of the roof, staring at the ground below, screaming. Behind her a Dauntless boy holds her at the waist to keep her from falling off.

"Toni**(2)**," he says. "Toni, calm down. Toni–"

I stand and look over the edge. There is a body on the pavement below us; a girl, her arms and legs bent at awkward angles, her hair spread in a fan around her head. My stomach sinks and I stare at the railroad tracks. Not everyone made it. And even the Dauntless are not safe.

Toni sinks to her knees, sobbing. I turn away. The longer I watch her, the more likely I am to cry, and I cannot cry in front of these people.

I tell myself, as sternly as possible, _that is how things work here_. We do dangerous things and people die. People die, and we move on to the next dangerous thing. The sooner that lesson sinks in, the better chance I have at surviving initiation.

I am no longer sure that I will survive initiation.

I tell myself I will count to three, and when I am done, I will move on. _One_. I picture the body of the girl on the pavement, and a shudder goes through me. _Two_. I hear Toni's sobs and the murmured reassurance of the boy behind her. _Three_.

My lips pursed, I walk away from Toni and the edge of the roof.

My elbow stings. I pull my sleeve up to examine it, my hand shaking. Some of the skin is peeling off, but it is not bleeding.

"Ooh. _Scandalous! _A Troq's flashing some skin!"

I lift my head. "Troq" is slang for Abnegation, and I am the only one here. Xavier points at me, smirking. I hear laughter. My cheeks heat up, and I let my sleeve fall.

"Listen up! My name is Slade! I am one of the leaders of your new faction!" shouts a man at the other end of the roof. He is older than the others, with deep creases in his tan skin and gray hair at his temples, and he stands on the ledge like it is a sidewalk. Like someone did not just fall to her death from it. "Several stories below us is the members' entrance to our compound. If you can't muster the will to jump off, you don't belong here. Our initiates have the privilege of going first."

"You want us to jump off a _ledge_?" asks an Erudite girl. She is a few inches taller than I am, with mousy brown hair and big lips. Her mouth hangs open.

I do not know why it shocks her.

"Yes," Slade says. He looks amused.

"Is there water at the bottom or something?"

"Who knows?" He raises his eyebrows.

The crowd in front of the initiates splits in half, making a wide path for us. I look around. No one looks eager to leap off the building–their eyes are everywhere but on Slade. Some of them nurse minor wounds or brush gravel from their clothes. I glance at Xavier. He is picking at one of his cuticles. Trying to act casual.

I am proud. It will get me into trouble someday, but today it makes me brave. I walk toward the ledge and hear snickers behind me.

Slade steps aside, leaving my way clear. I walk up to the edge and look down. Wind whips through my clothes, making the fabric snap. The building I am on forms one side of a square with three other buildings. In the center of the square is a huge hole in the concrete. I cannot see what is at the bottom of it.

This is a scare tactic. I will land safely at the bottom. That knowledge is the only thing that helps me step onto the ledge. My teeth chatter. I cannot back down now. Not with all the people betting I will fail behind me. My hands fumble along the collar of my shirt and find the button that secures it shut. After a few tries, I undo the hooks from collar to hem, and pull it off my shoulders.

Beneath it, I wear a gray T-shirt. It is tighter than any other clothes I own, and no one has ever seen me in it before. I ball up my outer shirt and look over my shoulder, at Xavier. I throw the ball of fabric at him as hard as I can, my jaw clenched. It hits him in the chest. He stares at me. I hear catcalls and shouts behind me.

I look at the hole again. Goosebumps rise on my tan arms, and my stomach lurches. If I do not do it now, I will not be able to do it at all. I swallow hard.

I do not think. I just bend my knees and jump.

The air howls on my ears as the ground surges toward me, growing and expanding, or I surge toward the ground, my heart pounding so fast it hurts, every muscle in my body tensing as the falling sensation drag at my stomach. The hole surrounds me and I drop into darkness.

I hit something hard. It gives way beneath me and cradles my body. The impact knocks the wind out of me and I wheeze, struggling to breathe again. My arms and legs sting.

A net. There is a net at the bottom of the hole. I look up at the building and laugh, half relieved and half hysterical. My body shakes and I cover my face with my hands. I just jumped off a roof.

I have to stand on solid ground again. I see a few hands stretching out to me at the edge of the net, so I grab the first one I can reach and pull myself across. I roll off, and I would have fallen face-first onto a wood floor if he had not caught me.

"He" is the young man attached to the hand I grabbed. He has a spare upper lip and a full lower lip. His eyes are so deep-set that his eyelashes touch the skin under his eyebrows, and they are sky blue, a dreaming, sleeping, waiting color.

His hands grip my arms, but he releases me a moment after I stand upright again.

"Thank you," I say.

We stand on a platform ten feet above the ground. Around us is an open cavern.

"Can't believe it," a voice says from behind him. It belongs to a red-haired girl with three silver rings through her right eyebrow. She smirks at me. "A Troq, the first to jump? Unheard of."

"There's a reason why she left them, Barbara," he says. His voice is deep and it rumbles. "What's your name?"

"Um..." I do not know why I hesitate. But "Koriana" just does not sound right anymore.

"Think about it," he says, a faint smile his lips. "You don't get to pick again."

A new place, a new name. I can be remade here.

"Kori," I say firmly.

"Kori," Barbara repeats, grinning. "Make the announcement, Robin."

The boy–Robin–looks over his shoulder and shouts, "First jumper–Kori!"

A crowd materializes from the darkness as my eyes adjust. They cheer and pump their fists, and then another person drops into the net. Her screams follow her down. Rachel. Everyone laughs, but they follow their laughter with more cheering.

Robin sets his hand on my back and says, "Welcome to Dauntless."

**Finally, Robin comes into the picture. I totally support the shipping. I've thought of a shipping name for it: Flying Star. Cause robins and stars fly.**

**(1): That is not Wally. Wally is too precious to become factionless.**

**(2): Argent.**

**Stay whelmed!**


	7. Chapter 7

When all the initiates stand on solid ground again, Barbara and Robin lead us down a narrow tunnel. The walls are made of stone, and the ceiling slopes, so I feel like I am descending deep into the heart of the earth. The tunnel is lit at long intervals, so in the dark space between each dim lamp, I fear that I am lost until a shoulder bumps mine. In the circles of light I am safe again.

The Erudite boy in front of me stops abruptly, and I smack into him, hitting my nose on his shoulder. I stumble back and rub my nose as I recover my senses. The whole crowd has stopped, and our three leaders stand in front of us, arms folded.

"This is where we divide," Barbara says. "The Dauntless-born initiates are with me. I assume _you_ don't need a tour of the place."

She smiles and beckons toward the Dauntless-born initiates. They break away from the group and dissolve into the shadows. I watch the last heel pass out of the light and look at those of us who are left. Most of the initiates were from Dauntless, so only nine people remain. Of those, I am the only Abnegation transfer, and there are no Amity transfers. The rest are from Erudite and, surprisingly, Candor. It must require bravery to honest all the time. I would not know.

Robin addresses us next. "Most of the time I work in the control room, but for the next few weeks, I am your instructor," he says. "My name is Robin."

Rachel asks, "Robin? Like the bird?"

"Yes," Robin says. "Is there a problem?"

"No."

"Good. We're about to go into the Cave, which you will someday learn to love. It-"

Rachel snickers. "The Cave? Clever name."

Robin walks up to Rachel and leans his face close to hers. His eyes narrow, and for a second he just glares at her.

"What's your name?" he asks quietly.

"Rachel," she squeaks.

"Well, Rachel, if I wanted to put up with Candor smart-mouths, I would have joined their faction," he hisses. "The first lesson you will learn from me is to keep your mouth shut. Got that?"

She nods.

Robin starts toward the shadow at the end of the tunnel. The crowd of initiates moves on in silence.

"What a jerk," she mumbles.

"I guess he does not like to be ridiculed," I reply.

It would probably be wise to be careful around Robin, I realize. He seemed placid to me on the platform, but something about that stillness makes me wary now.

Robin pushes a set of double doors open, and we walk into the place he called "the Cave."

"Oh," whispers Rachel. "I get it."

"Cave" is the best word for it. It is an underground cavern so huge I cannot see the other end from where I stand, at the top. Uneven rock walls descend several stories under my feet. Built into the stone walls are places for food, clothing, supplies, leisure activities. Narrow paths and steps carved from rock connect them. There are no barriers to keep people from falling over the side.

A slant of orange light stretches across one of the rock walls. Forming the roof of the Cave are panes of steel and, above them, a building that lets in sunlight. It must have looked like just another city building when we passed it on the train.

Blue lanterns dangle at random intervals above the stone paths, similar to the ones that lit the Choosing room. They grow brighter as the sunlight dies.

People are everywhere, all dressed in black, all shouting and talking, expressive, gesturing. I do not see any elderly people in the crowd. Are there any old Dauntless? Do they not last that long, or are they just sent away when they cannot jump off moving trains anymore?

A group of children run down a narrow path with no railing, so fast my heart pounds, and I want to scream at them to slow down before they get hurt. A memory of the orderly Abnegation streets appears in my mind: a line of people on the right passing a line of people on the left, small smiles and inclined heads in silence. My stomach squeezes. But there is something wonderful about Dauntless chaos.

"If you follow me," says Robin, "I'll show you the chasm."

He waves us forward. Robin's appearance seems tame from the front, by Dauntless standards, but when he turns around, I see a tattoo peeking out from the collar of his T-shirt. He leads us to the right side of the Cave, which is conspicuously dark. I squint and see that the floor I stand on now ends at an iron barrier. As we approach the railing, I hear a roar-water, fast-moving water, crashing against rocks.

I look over the side. The floor drops off at a sharp angle, and several stories below us is a river. Gushing water strikes the wall beneath me and sprays upward. To my left, the water is calmer, but to my right, it is white, battling with rock.

"The chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy!" Robin shouts. "A daredevil jump off this ledge will end your life. It has happened before and it will happen again. You've been warned."

"This is incredible," says Rachel, as we all move away from the railing.

"Incredible is the word," I say, nodding.

Robin leads the group of initiates across the Cave toward a gaping hole in the wall. The room beyond is well-lit enough that I can see where we are going: a dining hall full of people and clattering silverware. When we walk in, the Dauntless inside stand. They applaud. They stamp their feet. They shout. The noise surrounds me and fills me. Rachel smiles, and a second later, so do I.

We look for empty seats. Rachel and I discover a mostly empty table at the side of the room, and I find myself sitting between her and Robin. In the center of the table is a platter of food I do not recognize: circular pieces of meat wedged between round bread slices. I pinch one between my fingers, unsure what to make of it.

Robin nudges me with his elbow.

"It's beef," he says. "Put this on it." He passes me a small bowl full of yellow sauce. "What is it?" I ask. "Mustard," says Robin. I dip my finger in it and taste it. It is tangy. I pour it on the meat.

"You've never had a hamburger before?" asks Rachel, her eyes wide.

"No," I say. "Is that what it is called?"

"Troqs eat alien food," Robin says, nodding at Rachel.

"Why?" she asks.

I shrug. "Extravagance is considered self-indulgent and unnecessary."

She smirks. "No wonder you left."

"Yeah," I say, rolling my eyes. "It was just because of the food."

The corner of Robin's mouth twitches.

The doors to the cafeteria open, and a hush falls over the room. I look over my shoulder. A young man walks in, and it is quiet enough that I can hear his footsteps. His face is pierced in so many places I lose count, and his hair is short, dark, and greasy. But that is not what makes him look menacing. It is the coldness of his eyes as they sweep across the room.

"Who's that?" hisses Rachel.

"His name is Jason," says Robin. "He's a Dauntless leader."

"Seriously? But he's so young."

Robin gives her a grave look. "Age doesn't matter here."

I can tell she is about to ask what I want to ask: _Then what does matter?_ But Jason's eyes stop scanning the room, and he starts toward a table. He starts toward _our_ table and drops into the seat next to Robin. He offers no greeting, so neither do we.

"Well, aren't you going to introduce me?" he asks, nodding to Rachel and me.

Robin says, "This is Kori and Rachel."

"Ooh, a Troq," says Jason, smirking at me. His smile pulls at the piercings in his lips, making the holes they occupy wider, and I wince. "We'll see how long you last."

I mean to say something-to assure him that I _will_ last, maybe-but words fail me. I do not understand why, but I do not want Jason to look at me any longer than he already has. I do not want him to look at me ever again.

He taps his fingers against the table. His knuckles are scabbed over, right where they would split if he punched something too hard.

"What have you been doing lately, Robin?" he asks.

Robin lifts a shoulder. "Nothing, really," he says.

Are they friends? My eyes flick between Jason and Robin. Everything Jason did-sitting here, asking about Robin-suggests that they are, but the way Robin sits, tense as pulled wire, suggests they are something else. Rivals, maybe, but how could that be, if Jason is a leader and Robin is not?

"Slade tells me he keeps trying to meet with you, and you don't show up," Jason says. "He requested that I find out what's going on with you."

Robin looks at Jason for a few seconds before saying, "Tell him that I am satisfied with the position I currently hold."

"So he wants to give you a job."

The rings in Jason's eyebrow catch the light. Maybe Jason perceives Robin as a potential threat to his position. My father says that those who want power and get it live in terror of losing it. That is why we have to give power to those who do not want it.

"So it would seem," Robin says.

"And you aren't interested."

"I haven't been interested for two years."

"Well," says Jason. "Let's hope he gets the point, then."

He claps Robin on the shoulder, a little too hard, and gets up. When he walks away, I slouch immediately. I had not realized that I was so tense.

"Are you two...friends?" I say, unable to contain my curiosity.

"We were in the same initiate class," he says. "He transferred from Erudite."

All thoughts of being careful around Robin leave me. "Were you a transfer too?"

"I thought I would only have trouble with the Candor asking too many questions," he says coldly. "Now I've got Troqs, too?"

"It must be because you are so approachable," I say flatly. "You know. Like a bed of nails."

He stares at me, and I do not look away. He is not a dog, but the same rules apply. Looking away is submissive. Looking him in the eye is a challenge. It is my choice.

Heat rushes into my cheeks. What will happen when this tension breaks?

But he just says, "Careful, Kori."

My stomach drops like I just swallowed a stone. A Dauntless member at another table calls out Robin's name, and I turn to Rachel. She raises both eyebrows.

"What?" I ask.

"I'm developing a theory."

"And it is?"

She picks up her hamburger, grins, and says, "That you have a death wish."

_Divergent_

After dinner, Robin disappears without a word. Jason leads us down a series of hallways without telling us where we are going. I do not know why a Dauntless leader would be responsible for a group of initiates, but maybe it is just for tonight.

At the end of each hallway is a blue lamp, but between them it is dark, and I have to be careful not to over uneven ground. Rachel walks beside me in silence. No one told us to be quiet, but none of us speak.

Jason stops in front of a wooden door and folds his arms. We gather around him.

"For those of you who don't know, my name is Jason," he says. "I am one of five leaders of the Dauntless. We take the initiation process very seriously here, so I volunteered to oversee most of your training."

The thought makes me nauseous. The idea that a Dauntless leader will oversee our initiation is bad enough, but the fact that it is Jason makes it seem even worse.

"Some ground rules," he says. "You have to be in the training room by eight o'clock every day. Training takes place every day from eight to six, with a break for lunch. You are free to do whatever you like after six. You will also get some time off between each stage of initiation."

The phrase "do whatever you like" sticks in my mind. At home, I could never do what I wanted, not even for an evening. I had to think of other people's needs first. I do not even know what I like to do.

"You are only permitted to leave the compound when accompanied by a Dauntless," Jason adds. "Behind this door is the room where you will be sleeping for the next few weeks. You will notice that there are ten beds and only nine of you. We anticipated that a higher proportion of would make it this far."

"But we started with twelve," protests Rachel. I close my eyes and wait for the reprimand. She needs to learn to stay quiet.

"There is always at least one transfer who doesn't make it to the compound," says Jason, picking at his cuticles. He shrugs. "Anyway, in the first stage of initiation, we keep transfers and Dauntless-born initiates separate, but that doesn't mean you are evaluated separately. At the end of initiation, your rankings will be determined in comparison with the Dauntless-horn initiates. And they are better than you are already. So I expect-"

_"Rankings?" _asks the mousy-haired Erudite girl to my right. "Why are we ranked?"

Jason smiles, and in the blue light, his smile looks wicked, like it was cut into his face with a knife.**(1)**

"Your ranking serves two purposes," he says. "The first is that it determines the order in which you will select a job after initiation. There are only a few _desirable_ position available."

My stomach tightens. I know by looking at his smile, like I knew the second I entered the aptitude test room, that something bad is about to happen.

"The second purpose," he says, "is that only the top ten initiates are made members."

Pain stabs my stomach. We all stand still as statues. And then Rachel says, _"What?"_

"There are eleven Dauntless-borns, and nine of you," Jason continues. "Four initiates will be cut at the end of stage one. The remainder will be cut after the final test."

That means that even if we make it through each stage of initiation, six initiates will not be members. I see Rachel look at me from the corner of my eye, but I cannot look back at her. My eyes are fixed on Jason and will not move.

My odds, as the only Abnegation transfer, are not good.

"What do we do if we're cut?" Xavier says.

"You leave the Dauntless compound," says Jason indifferently, "and live factionless."

The mousy-haired girl clamps her hand over her mouth and stifles a sob. I remember the factionless man with the gray teeth, snatching the bag of apples from my hands. His dull, staring eyes. But instead of crying, like the Erudite girl, I feel colder. Harder.

I will be a member. I will.

"But that's...not fair!" the blonde-haired Candor girl, Terra, says. Even though she sounds angry, she looks terrified. "If we had _known_-"

"Are you saying that if you had known this before the Choosing Ceremony, you wouldn't have chosen Dauntless?" Jason snaps. "Because if that's the case, you should get out now. If you really are one of us, it won't matter to you that you might fail. And if it does, you are a coward."

Jason pushes the door to the dormitory open.

"You chose us," he says. "Now we have to choose you."

_Divergent_

I lie in bed and listen to nine people breathing.

I have never slept in the same room as a boy before, but here I have no other option, unless I want to sleep in the hallway. Everyone else changed into the clothes the Dauntless provided for us, but I sleep in my Abnegation clothes, which still smell like soap and fresh air, like home.

I used to have my own room. I could see the front lawn from the window, and beyond it, the foggy skyline. I am used to sleeping in silence.

Heat swells behind my eyes as I think of home, and when I blink, a tear slips out. I cover my mouth to stifle a sob.

I cannot cry, not here. I have to calm down.

It will be all right here. I can look at my reflection whenever I want. I can befriend Rachel, and cut my hair short, and let other people clean up their own messes.

My hands shake and the tears come faster now, blurring my vision.

It does not matter that the next time I see my parents, on Visiting Day, they will barely recognize me-if they come at all. It does not matter that I ache at even a split-second memory of their faces. Even Komiara's, despite how much her secrets hurt me. I match my inhales to their exhales. It does not matter.

A strangled sound interrupts the breathing, followed by a heavy sob. Bed springs squeal as a large body turns, and a pillow muffles the sobs, but not enough. They come from the bunk next to mine-they belong to a Candor boy, Mal, the largest and broadest of all the initiates. He is the last person I expected to break down.

His feet are just inches away from my head. I should comfort him-I should _want_ to comfort him, because I was raised that way. Instead I feel disgust. Someone who looks so strong should not act so weak. Why can he not just keep his crying quiet like the rest of us?

I swallow hard.

If my mother knew what I was thinking, I know what look she would give me. The corners of her mouth turned down. Her eyebrows set low over her eyes-not scowling, almost tired. I drag the heel of my hand over my cheeks.

Mal sobs again. I almost feel the sound grate in my own throat. He is just inches away from me-I should touch him.

No. I put my hand down and roll onto my side, facing the wall. No one has to know that I do not want to help him. I can keep that secret buried. My eyes shut and I feel the pull of sleep, but every time I come close, I hear Mal again.

Maybe my problem is not that I cannot go home. I will miss my mother and father and Komiara and evening firelight and the clack of my mother's knitting needles, but that is not the only reason for this hollow feeling in my stomach.

My problem might be that even if I did go home, I would not belong there, among people who give without thinking and care without trying.

The thought makes me grit my teeth. I gather the pillow around my ears to block out Mal's crying, and fall asleep with a circle of moisture pressed to my cheek.

**I am SO sorry it took so long to update! I have had homework and volleyball games.**

**(1): Why would they say that? **

**Stay whelmed!**


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